All Exits Look the Same
by De Fideli
Summary: "Three words that became hard to say: I, and love, and you." [oneshot] Rated M for one short sexual segment out of twenty.


Maybe what you need is a vacation," his friend suggests, only taking a break from typing as he pushes his glasses back onto his nose. Others cannot tear their eyes away from the man of power, but Combeferre does not need to glance at Enjolras to know what his appearance has diminished to: a tired shell of a man, not even in his third decade of life, without half the passion that he possessed in his early ascent. "You haven't been back home in a long time, am I right?"

"No," he replies, his lips forming a tight frown. He means to refuse the suggestion, but his right hand man instead takes it as the answer to his question.

* * *

_In her last hour of work at the restaurant, she groans at the sight of a large, merry party. She pretends to care for the cause of their celebration, and in doing so, she finds out that it's an important win against gun violence on the urban streets, and thinking back to her childhood, she can't help but be happy too._

_When she sees him, he is sitting quietly in a corner as his friends shower his speech with compliments._

_Before they leave, he hands over the bill and she even neglects the platinum credit card that is worth probably more than three times of her entire livelihood combined._

_ "It's really gonna change things," she begins. "What you did."_

_He looks up to meet the sincerity in her eyes, and it is the closest thing to a smile she's seen all night. "I appreciate hearing that," he replies._

_She likes him for more than the large tip that he leaves. His words are kind and just like that, she feels like someone._

* * *

When plane tickets appear on his desk later in the afternoon, he pretends he does not see them. Combeferre does not understand that a visit back would not fuel his engine, but lead to an abrupt, dangerous slam of the breaks. He does not know the serious threat it poses as a potential impediment—because Enjolras had done without home for so long, that he can't bear to have a controlled taste of it.

Still, three days later, he finds himself slowly walking out of the arrival gates, wearing the soft cotton of a t-shirt he has not considered walking out of public in ever since he took his first professional internship. If he covers his eyes with his sunglasses, if he places a baseball cap over his unusually unsculpted hair, he is not the same man at the Capital.

It is in this same place that his driver had taken him only a few years back, his belongings as his only company. He told himself he preferred goodbyes that way; his early morning flight conflicted with Grantaire's hangover routine, and Marius did not need to bother with asking his dear Cosette for permission to leave her glorious presence. But he could have done without one absence.

He fools the airport crowd, but he does not fool his own mother who points him out to their driver with ease. She knew him when he wore those clothes, and she knows him now.

"What on earth did you decide to put on?" she sneers. "You'll change out of those clothes; the guests have put much into their own appearances for you to barge in so slovenly."

* * *

_He comes back to the restaurant, only this time a fleet of other angel-like men and women follow him—she can only assume it to be his family._

_She's been having a shit day, and it's not her fault that they forget to take the veal out of the older woman's plate. In her opinion, the bitch should have at least checked before she bit into the quiche._

_She storms out when the manager forces her to apologize, because a loss of dignity was not in the job requirement. The bills are overdue and Gavroche needs surgery on his broken arm, and all she needs is the reminder that she no longer has a job for her to leave a puddle in the side alley made with her tears._

_Footsteps come towards her and she curses the fact that she left her pepper spray, along with the rest of her belongings, in the back room of the restaurant._ _Instead of some scumbag, it's him again. "You didn't deserve that."_ _Him and his pretty words._

* * *

_Home sweet home_, he thinks. His mother has not aged past her condescension, as if it is renewed with every facial lift surgery that she puts herself under the knife for. She has not outgrown her affinity for lavish parties either, and he is only lucky she does not hold this one all the way to their upstate home.

It makes it easier for him to make his abrupt exit—after he grows tired of countless family friends interjecting with their suggestions on how to do _his_ job. He hardly thinks that the room of the notorious one percent have much use in striving for the good of the country, but he smiles politely. A few empty gestures are probably more favorable to his public image than a frenzied tirade.

* * *

_Her new job happens to be at his favorite cafe. When it is only the two of them left, she sits on the counter and he, on his nearby table. _

_She listens to his speeches—really listens. She tells him when things wouldn't make sense to the common mind._

_"I don't know what I'd do without you," he chuckles and it's the first time she thinks she's heard him joke._ _Still, it makes her feel important._

* * *

His foot meets a puddle on the sidewalk, and he waves off the driver despite the unmistakable beginning of an impending storm. He doubts his mother would think, or bother, to look for him on the plebeian streets of New York, and when he has walked for about half an hour, his assumptions are confirmed when he scrolls down his missed call list. Combeferre once, and only once, because he does not worry enough to leave more than a voicemail. Prouvaire another time, and when he reads through his text messages, he learns that the man has taken the honor of watering the plants in his apartment after fearing for their demise during his absence.

He locks his phone and looks up, sighing when he realizes where he mindlessly wandered to as he stands on the sidewalk of the intersection beside Café Musain. The rain has hardly deterred the rush hour traffic, and he curses when the turn of a car splashes his dress pants. He is about to push the door and walk into the café, but when his hand meets with the scratched, golden doorknob, he looks through the glass door and sees her in front of the counter. Her profile is as familiar to him as any other perspective of her face, for he has studied it as closely as he does when he is standing in front of her in an exchange of passionate beliefs, or when he has angered her enough for her back to be turned towards him. He knows the side of her face because she prefers to look away when she is caught up in her own thoughts—and that is when he finds himself observing her the most.

She turns around to push something along, and Enjolras does not know if it is the boom of thunder that shakes the ground, or if his legs fail him when he follows her hands to a baby stroller. For the longest four seconds of his existence, he can do nothing but follow her arms back up to her face; he remains frozen until her eyes engage with his, and he realizes his mistake. Spinning on his heel, he turns around and runs through the busy intersection.

He had wished to feel alive again for the longest time, but now that he can feel his heart testing the strength of his ribcage, he only wishes that vivacity did not associate itself with his need to expel his stomach's content out for the rain to wash it into the drainage system.

* * *

_"And what after?" she asks him curiously. "Don't you want a life outside of politics? Maybe, I don't know.. a family?"_

_He shrugs. "Never thought about it," he lies. He thought about it when he met Gavroche—how nice it would be to raise a child to be great. He's surely thought about it when she tells him stories of her own, and he wishes she were blessed with a better one. "What about you?"_

_She lets out her loud laugh, looking down at the floor she sweeps. "I wouldn't know what to do with myself."_

_"I think you're pretty smart," he counters._ _And there he goes again, letting her believe in ridiculous possibilities._

* * *

He takes shelter on a storefront a few city blocks away, and he almost doesn't hear his phone ring from his heavy panting. "Hello?"

"Thanks for telling me you were home, asshole," a familiar voice replies.

He lets out a sigh of relief. He has never been so thankful for the sound of Grantaire.

"Come to the Corinth and grovel. It's on you tonight."

* * *

"Fuck. So she saw you?" Grantaire asks, intrigued by the turn of events as he lets the burn of whiskey wash down his throat.

"I think you're missing the fucking point here," Enjolras grumbles. "You failed to notify me that she has a child, for Christ's sake." He does not remember the last time he'd consumed liquor in the magnitude it comes tonight, but his buzz extinguishes his potential concern.

"You didn't want to talk about her," Grantaire shrugged, brushing the blame off, immune to Enjolras' angry stare. "Anyway, she doesn't have a kid, so you can stop shitting your pants." He takes another drink and waits for a response from his friend, but instead the man so often stoic has been reduced to a speechless mess, staring at the shot glass in his hands. He does not even question the grounds behind the assurance, never stopping to wonder how his friend got so involved in her life. Grantaire's eyes widen. "Did you think it was yours?"

He snaps out of his own thoughts and looks up, an unmistakable crimson trickling into his cheeks. "What? No. We never," he doesn't even finish. Grantaire rolls his eyes, in recognition that the man who can stun his political adversaries into defeat still cannot talk about physical intimacies without a stutter.

"Ah, that's right," Grantaire recalls. "You never did tell her."

Enjolras takes another shot to the obvious truth.

* * *

_He takes her out with the rest of the boys for Marius' birthday, shooting off the excuse that Cosette needs someone to talk to._ _He instantly regrets it when he watches her adore Marius' pretty face, and he downs his shots a little faster than normal._

_"Make a move, superhero," Grantaire says from behind him._ _All other nights, he would simply roll his eyes and tell Grantaire to screw off. But the alcohol intensifies the jealousy, and he makes sure that he is the one who walks her home._

_But when he gets to her doorstep and the drunken stupor has faded into a coherent buzz, he remains silent as she turns her keys._ _"I'm glad you came tonight." That's what he settles for, and she takes it._

_As a thank you, she pulls his head down to her level and places a soft, chaste kiss on his lips._

_He may have pretty words, but her actions are more beautiful._

* * *

He walks the streets once more after he equips an unconscious Grantaire with his survival pack of a blanket, a bottle of water and two aspirins. He even takes time to look at his friend's studio apartment, littered with photo negatives and camera equipment. A smile forms on his lips, never guessing that his childhood friend so skeptical of all forces in the universe would find the satisfaction of honesty behind a lens.

He steps on the sidewalk once more—only this time, the rain is pouring much harder and he counts the number of blocks to his final destination in his head. Eight, he concludes. It could be worse.

But he makes a wrong turn, without even thinking twice as he takes an unnecessary left. It does not occur to him until he stands drenched in front of the red brick building with the familiar dysfunctional fire escape steps and the cracked window on the front door. He stares at the door for a moment before he wonders why he even considers going in. He does not even know if she lives there; he knows nothing about her anymore, besides the fact that she does not have a child and that he has this unmistakable urge to see her once more.

He silences the nonsense in his head when a cab pulls up beside the apartment, and of course, she is there. She looks up to see him, and freezes in her spot despite the large raindrops pouring down onto her dry clothing. "So that was you earlier," she says quietly, and he does not even know if it is him who the statement is directed to.

"Can I come in?" he asks her. "Home's a little far away." It is perhaps the least eloquent excuse he has ever come up with and he blames the alcohol that the rain has not washed away from his system, but she nods stiffly as she makes her way up the steps to unlock the door and let him in.

They make a silent ascent up the steps, and he looks at the familiar orange paint that she finds horrendous on the walls surrounding the staircase. He does not need to be told that she is on the third floor—he knows that well too.

* * *

_She avoids him for a week or so afterwards, but her sick days are limited and she'd rather not sacrifice her income for some stupid, embarrassing drunken idea. He keeps himself busy with interview preparations—making more plans for the future. He would tell her about them, tell her that he plans to leave town soon for the capital, but he tells himself it's her fault that she's not there to hear the news._

_She is about to leave from work when she runs into a solid chest when she tries to exit her apartment._ _"Can we talk?"_

_She nods, but when she bites her lip, his words turn into air and instead he captures her lips with his own, thinking that somehow by doing so, he can get back what he was trying to say. He was positive she'd stolen them away._

_His passion spills over into the battle of lips and tongue and teeth as her back presses against her doorway. Her fingers dance around the waistband of his jeans, and he pulls back, looking at her with flushed lips and wide-eyes._ _"I'm sorry," he says, and races down the three flights of stairs as she slides against the door onto the ground in a mess of rapid thoughts._

_Suddenly, his words aren't enough anymore because she feels like she's not enough anymore._

* * *

She turns her keys and flips the switch on, but the lights do not adhere to her desires. "Fuck," she mutters. "The power's out."

She guides them to the kitchen drawer with the lighter and illuminates the house with the dim flames of some candles laying around. A thoughtless present from Cosette, she remembers, but at least they somehow found a purpose.

He looks at the contours of her face against the shadows of the flame and has the urge to write a bill mandating the strict use of candlelight, because she just looks so damn beautiful.

"I don't have a kid, you know," she says as she lights a candle on the coffee table. He is about to tell her he knows, when she continues. "She's Marius and Cosette's."

"Oh," he replies. "I didn't know they had a child."

She shrugs. "You miss a lot when you're off saving the world." When she finishes the last candle, she reaches in a cabinet for a dry, ratty towel. His button-down white shirt clings to his skin, and she can almost see every muscle on his torso. She presses the dry towel against his chest in an attempt to cover him up, and his hands brush against hers in a moment of electricity. She quickly pulls away. "Saw you on C-SPAN the other day."

He sighs. "Please don't," She raises an eyebrow in surprise, and he continues, "I'm tired, Eponine." he trails off, looking down before he makes his confession. "I've never felt emptier."

"That was your choice," she reminds him somberly.

* * *

_"I don't think I can come back," he says quietly as she sits on her couch. "I can't be anything but my father's son here."_

_She doesn't need him, anyway, she tells herself. She survived without his elevation, and she can go back to that once more. "I know you think you need this," she replies, finally. "But you're more than the things you do." And the words he says. _

_"I know. I—," he begins, but when she looks up at him, he retreats in fear. "Thank you."_ _She nods. "Go."_

* * *

"I know," he replies. "I would have thought about staying if you told me to, you know."

She laughs humorlessly. "No, you wouldn't have," she disagrees. "People, individual people, they never meant that much to you. Not more than your cause."

He doesn't know if it's the statement that hurts, or if it's the way her nonchalance barely causes her tone to leave the ground as if it were an obvious truth. "Why didn't you tell me?" She doesn't have to ask him what he means, because they are dancing around the idea, never nearing its violent blaze in fear of feeling its burn.

"Who am I to tell you these distracting things?" Her voice finally rises. "Who were you to come into my fucking life and let me think I was someone?" _Who was I to believe you_, she does not add.

* * *

_She knows her words will be even more incoherent after travelling through the airwaves, but she picks up the phone anyway._

_"Hello, you have reached Congressman Enjolras' office—," she cuts off the familiar message. It won't lead to him. It will lead to some wide-eyed intern working for her hero, and then to some administrator, and maybe even to his secretary. But never him. They are separated not by the miles from her city to his, but by the people he barricades his personal life with._

_Grantaire holds her that night, rubbing her back soothingly as her cries meet no effort of suppression. "He loved you, you know." She pretends he means Gavroche does. She knows. She watched his coffin descend into the ground with the comfort of that definite knowledge. So she nods. "I've never been more sure of anything in my entire life."_

_Not Enjolras. He does not mean Enjolras. She can't afford to tell herself that for the rest of her life._

* * *

He steps towards her, so dangerously close—-and there it is. Buried in his chest. He can feel the warmth of the flame. "You are everything, and I'm losing you," he places both of his hands on her arms. "I need you. You never needed me, but goddammit, I need you."

She looks up at him, and her lips tremble. She wills herself not to need him back because she doesn't know if she wants to be everything. "I can't—,"

He closes her mouth with his own lips, a hand losing itself in her hair and the other to the small of her back. He is alright with the darkness, because he has never needed to see her as much as he needed to feel her warmth. He tried being with her from afar, but he couldn't feel the flame and it frustrated him to see it.

She finally responds, finally lets his tongue find its way in, finally responds with equally as much passion, and she doesn't think. She feels, and she feels it so damn well, and she does not need him to say a single thing anymore.

His hands ache to touch every inch of her, his unsatisfied hunger for the sensation of her driving his fingertips along the smoothness of her skin.

It does not occur to her that they have been in an uncharacteristic silence for the past few minutes until he hears her moan into his mouth. Between the two of them, she's never been the one to need to use words.

He pulls back and presses his forehead against hers, and she breathes a soft, "I need you too." He likes it when she speaks. As he unbuttons his shirt, she peels the damp fabric off of his body at a tortuous pace, and his wet chest glistens in the candlelight.

It takes them a few collisions with the wall, some knocked over objects and even shameless stumbles to get to her bed.

But when they are finally fully unclothed, her body pressed up against his own, he goes even slower as he lines her collarbone with kisses. She only needs to look at him with her dark eyes of want for him to understand that she cannot wait any longer.

When he enters her, they finally immerse themselves in the flame. It is slow, and it is passionate, and it is a push and pull of want and need. She reaches her peak as she feels his power, and when she finally comes undone, in the string of incoherencies, she breathes out a clear "I love you."

He loses himself and collapses on her, their bodies lined with sweat.

She waits for it, but he is nothing but a series of deep breaths as he pulls her against his chest when he finally lays beside her.

Nothing; it does not spill out of his mouth, and she realizes she was foolish to assume it was there in the first place.

She bites her lip, because she doesn't want to explain the teardrops that would trickle down on him.

* * *

He wakes up to a scrawled note on the bedside table. "Had to go to work. Have a safe flight." He frowns when he can barely understand the last word because the ink has been destroyed by a water stain. It's not the only thing that frustrates him.

His driver finally finds him only one block down, and he does not even contest when he gets into the black towncar.

He looks at her through the tinted windows, walking out of a convenience store talking to another man. He cringes at the fact that he called the stranger _another man_, as if he were the only one.

She doesn't need him, he reminds himself.

* * *

_He is sitting in his office one day, and receives a call on his emergency cellphone._

_"Enj?" a teenage boy's voice says. "It's Gavroche. You told me if I needed anything, to call you on this number."_

_"Yes, continue," Enjolras tells him._ _"Well, got in a bit of trouble here at the police station. Any chance you got a few friends?" He can hear Gavroche grin through the phone._

_He sighs. "I'll see what I can do," pulling up the number to Courfeyrac's firm downtown. "Stay out of trouble next time."_

_"Aye, captain."_

_"And Gavroche?" He doesn't think when he impulsively continues. "Tell Eponine I love her."_ _He hangs up the phone and lets out a deep breath._

_On his way home from the police station, gunshots ring out in the abandoned alley of Gavroche's shortcut._ _And the message, left undelivered._

* * *

"Feel better? You sure you don't need a longer break?" Combeferre asks him when he sees the man back behind his large wooden desk.

"No," he answers, not looking up from the computer screen. His assistant takes it as an answer to the second question. He means the first. He needs it. He needs her.


End file.
